First of all I must point out that the author’s name is Watts and for the first half of this article he gives examples using power grids. Anyway, this article was overall quite interesting as Watts discusses the topic of networks as systems and how we might understand the behaviours of component individually but collectively behaviour changes. I also learned where the term ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ came from, hence the title.

There were many points made in this article but also many questions were raised, such as ‘how vulnerable are large infrastructure networks like the power grid or the internet to random failures or deliberate attacks?’ Many questions Watts raised can’t be answered due to the fact they are still researching this area which is annoying as I’d really like to know the answer to this one. I’m pretty sure not that long ago there was talk about a terrorist act on the world could involve cutting the cables of the internet. I found this interesting article written back in 2012 ‘Four ways the Internet could go down’, although insightful I don’t think we could never really know just how vulnerable we are to these four problems.